The Alte Nationalgalerie is one fifth of the National Gallery. Together with the Neue Nationalgalerie, displaying 20th-century art; the Museum Berggruen, featuring works of early 20th-century Modernism; Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart –Berlin, which houses contemporary art items; and the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, or Friedrichswerder Church, containing a vast selection of 19th-century sculptures, they constitute a whole. The Alte Nationalgalerie is conceived as a comprehensive collection of art showcasing the era between the French Revolution and World War I, thus providing an outline of the transitional period between Classicism and the Secessions. The collection and the museum building reside in a harmonious relationship. The gallery was erected between 1867 and 1876, with its collection said to be among the most exquisite of its kind.

The exhibition on the third floor of the museum offers an insight into the Goethe era, represented by landscapes by Jakob Philipp Hackert; a series of portraits by Anton Graff and his contemporaries; and works of German artists working in Rome, referred to as the Nazarenes, featuring Peter Cornelius, Friedrich Overbeck, Wilhelm Schadow and Philipp Veit. Two exhibition halls on the top floor of the Alte Nationalgalerie present teh masterpieces of Romanticism. The site also houses paintings by Caspar David Friedrich, spanning all phases of the artist’s career, and illustrating the development of the master of German Romantic art. Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s architectural visions are showcased via various displays of the architect's landscape paintings. Other notables include the works of Carl Blechen; portraits by Philipp Otto Runge and Gottlieb Schick; landscapes by Joseph Anton Koch and Carl Rottmann; and a series of Biedermeier works. The museum also displays paintings of Berlin by Eduard Gaertner and Johann Erdmann Hummel, portraits by Spitzweg and Waldmüller, landscapes and genre paintings.

The displays on the second floor contain rich holdings of Impressionist painting, featuring important works by Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Degas and Paul Cézanne, as well as sculptures by Auguste Rodin. Painting of the late 19th Century is represented by works of Hans Thoma, Feuerbach, Arnold Böcklin and Hans von Marées, as well as several pieces by Wilhelm Leibl and Wilhelm Trübner. A particular highlight here is the large collection of paintings by Max Liebermann. The gallery’s first floor is occupied by Adolph Menzel’s paintings, featuring major pieces, such as 'The Balcony Room' and the 'Iron Rolling Mill', revealing important episodes of Prussian history, displaying great imagination and an exquisite sense of colours. The 19th-century sculpture is represented by such works as the 'Two Princesses' by Johann Gottfried Schadow, and pieces by Berthel Thorwaldsen, Antonio Canova, Schadow, Reinhold Begas, Adolf von Hildebrand and Constantin Meunier. Sculptures of the Schinkel era can also be found in Friedrichswerder Church.